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The Status of Woman in Islam:

Is Woman Equal to Man or Not?

Imam A. M. Khattab

[Part 1 of 6]

Introduction

ast week we heard the talk of Sister Yasmeen Shaikh

about the status of women in Islam, and equality

between the sexes. Considering the points Yasmeen has

raised, I will need three or four weeks until the next scheduled

speaker, to comment and elaborate on those points and that is

what I am going to do.

Before talking about equality between males and

females, and how I look at it in terms of the Qur’anic verses and

the Prophetic sayings and traditions, equality needs to be defined

first. If we are talking about equality in physical capabilities, then

there is no equality. And no one can deny that. If we are talking

about the nature of a woman and the nature of a man, we say, no,

they are not equal. A woman delivers children, while a man

cannot deliver children, so they are not equal in that respect.

With respect to emotions and the psychology of woman and

man, can we say they are equal? They are not. The psychologists

of nowadays describe the man as playing an instrumental role

Imam’s new policy: “We are going to change the system of our

lectures here [September 1995]. At least once a month, it is

hoped, there will be a speaker from the community.” Sister

Yasmeen Shaikh was the first speaker.

and that needs power, toughness and other special characteristics

for the person who will perform that role. And the role, which

is assigned to the woman, by the psychologists and sociologists, is

the expressive role. That is a role which a man sometimes fails to

do. It is based upon emotions, upon softness and closeness, and

these characteristics confer the ability to rear children, and the

woman is vouchsafed a special reward for that by Islam. So, in

this respect, there is no equality between a man and a woman,

because each one is assigned a role based upon their capability

and special characteristics, although, this does not mean that

there are no tough women – tougher than men – and,

sometimes, there are soft men, who nearly look like women.

So what is equality and how do we define it? Equality

between males and females is in the affairs of daily life, in the area

of work, in rights of salary, in the daily dealings of life between a

man and a woman in the house – that is equality. As a result,

Islam calls marriage “life partnership”. Partnership means that

these two people agreed to certain terms in a civil contract. See,

mistakenly, sometimes, we look at marriage as a religious

contract. It is not a religious contract. It is a civil contract.

Whatever the man and the woman agree to in that contract will

The Status of Woman in Islam – Introduction

govern their shared life. Religion touches upon this contract

only in that, it states, there must be “a proposal from one party,

and an approval from the other party, and two witnesses to the

proposal and approval”. That is what Islam requires. Religion is

the base for any civil contract because there are Qur’anic verses,

hadith,

interpretations, and schools of thought which dictate

what that contract should be in the light of the Qur’an and the

sunnah,

in order to make equality prevail.

Once a man came to the Prophet and asked: “Prophet,

who, by definition, is my best friend, and the most deserving of

my kindness and service?” He told him that it was his mother.

He then asked:

“Who is the next?”

The Prophet said: “Your mother.”

“Then, who is the next?”

And the Prophet again said: “Your mother.”

The man asked for the fourth time: “Who is the next?”

He replied: “Your father.”

“And who is the next?” He asked for the fifth time.

The Prophet said: “Your nearest relative.”

He mentioned the mother thrice and the father once. Can we

interpret this to mean that there is no equality between male and

female, and that the woman is above man? Or, can we interpret

this as an inequality between male and female in Islam, because

Islam gives the woman three shares in the friendship of her

children, and gives the man one share, and, as a result, the men

should start to form the “men’s liberation movement”? But we

have to understand everything in its proper context: roles –

there are roles which a man will not be as adept in doing as a

woman, for example, taking care of a child. I don’t care what

the people say about how the fathers in America are caring for

their children at home, a father can never have the softness that a

mother has in that role. All of us are fathers – let us admit it –

when our kids used to cry at night, we said to our wives, “Shut

that kid up; I am working seven o’clock in the morning.”

But

the mother… is awake all night caring for the child, sometimes

carrying him, and walking around from room to room. That is

the failure of the husband, and the success of the wife. Can we

say this means there is no equality?

A report or account of what the Prophet said

The example of the Prophet embodied in his statements and

actions

Imam is speaking in a soft, whispering, and tender voice

If we study what life was like before the advent of

Islam, then we will know what Islam did for both males and

females. We know that, in Arabia, the female child used to be

buried alive, and it was considered a shame when a female infant

was born. Coinciding with that time in Arabia was the Golden

Age of the Roman Empire, where a sort of marriage was

practiced which they called azwaaj bis-siyaadah or “marriage with

authority”. The “marriage with authority” permitted the

husband to beat his wife, kill her, or to sell her to another person.

She was a piece of property. After his death, his eldest son

inherited her, and he was free to marry her, or give her to

somebody else. If you study the Roman law of that time, you

will find these facts in it. Islam came to find these practices

prevailing among the people, and showed the way to equality.

Instead of being inherited like a piece of property, the woman

became an inheritor in the estate of her father, her mother, her

sister, brother, son, and daughter. She was entitled to her own

property. As recently as 100 years ago, in French law, a woman

could not own any property without the signature of her

husband, whereas since the inception of Islam, a woman could

own property be that her husband accepted or not.

In the tafseers

of the Qur’an, it is written that the

problem between Q

beel and H

beel centered around a

woman, while the Qur’an mentions the story of Q

beel wa

beel – Cain and Abel, as they call them in English – and there

is no indication of a dispute over a woman. Some of the

mofassireen,

as I have said to you before, quote from some

Christian books which talk about Eve being created from the rib

of Adam. This is not correct, but it is written in some tafseers of

the Qur’an. In the same manner, they talk about Cain and Abel

arguing over a beautiful girl. According to this story, Eve, at the

start of life, used to have twins – one boy and one girl – every

time. The twins were considered closer, relatively speaking, so

the boy, who was born last year, married the girl who was born

this year, and vice versa. That is how the story goes, and that is

how they interpret these things, and I don’t know wherefrom,

or what the source of all this is. How does one know these

things? But, you find them in books of tafseer. So, they say that

the girl born as the twin with Cain was very beautiful; but she

was to marry the other brother. Cain considered this unfair, and

questioned why his brother should take her. So they started to

Qur’anic exegesis

Exegetes

The Status of Woman in Islam – Introduction

argue, until one killed the other, and this was the first murder

and crime committed on earth.

[Imam quotes Arabic verses, and explains:]

But, when

we analyze the Qur’an, we find something else, other than this

business of girls and women: the Qur’an says: mention to them

the story of the two children of Adam; they each slaughtered an

animal as qurbani

to God. It was accepted from one and not

from the other. So, the one whose qurban was rejected said to his

brother, “I am going to kill you.” So, his nice brother, his pious

brother, said, “God accepts the qurban of the pious people. If you

extend your hand to kill me, I am not going to do the same,
because I fear God – ﻥﻴﻤﹶﻝﺎﻌﹾﻝﺍ ﺏﺭ ﻪﹼﻠﻝﺍ ﹸﻑﺎﹶﺨَﺃ ﻲﱢﻨِﺇ .” In spite of all

that, the devilish son of Adam killed his brother. But, after he

killed him, he started to regret his action. And, since this was the

first incident of murder on earth, he did not know what to do

with the dead body. He was confused, carrying the body of his

brother over his back for a while, going here and there, not

knowing what to do. So, who was the teacher? A raven. A

raven came, and killed another raven, then dug up the ground

and buried his brother. The raven taught the son of Adam

something he did not know. What did the son of Adam say?

“Woe to me. I failed to be like that raven.” He repented for his

crime.

See how the story is according to the text of the

Qur’an?

There is no mention about woman, there is no

mention about girls, yet, when we look in our tafseers, we find

that they were arguing over an attractive girl, but they quote this

from the books of others. When we explain the Qur’an, we

have to stay grounded in the text. It is better to say, “We don’t

know; we leave it up to God”, than to invent stories. This is

another incident quoted to suggest that women are behind every

trouble, but the Qur’an refutes that.

Just to remind you of what I have said before, the

Christian books, as well as the Jewish books relate that Eve was

the cause of the fall of Adam and his expulsion to earth, after he

had lived in Heaven with no troubles, and no work; she was the

root of the trouble; she lured Adam to eat from the tree. This is a

Christian interpretation of the story, and, I’m sorry to say, our

Muslim interpreters of the Qur’an have quoted these things, and

you find them in some tafseers also, whereas the Qur’an

completely refutes that idea. We find that the Qur’an talks about

Speaking in an urgent whisper

Sacrifice

5:27-31

Adam and Eve both as sinners, equal in their sin and disobedience

to God; it is neither the fault of Eve to bring Adam to earth, nor

the fault of Adam alone, but the fault of both.

The Arabic language has three grammatical cases,

singular, dual, and plural, as opposed to singular and plural in all

other languages. Therefore, two persons, in the Arabic language,

are not referred to in the plural form, but in the dual form.

When the Qur’an talks about the story of Adam and Eve, it talks,

throughout, in the dual form. I am going to analyze those verses

for you to show you the essence of the Qur’an and Islam, and to

show you that we, the Muslims, sometimes, say and do things

that are totally contradictory to the rules of Islam. [Imam quotes

Arabic verse and emphasizes the dual grammar:]

“O Adam, dwell thou and thy wife in this garden and

eat – both of you fa kulaa…Do not approach this one tree la

taqrabaa …Satan whispered unto the two fa waswasa

lahumaa… Satan swore unto them that he was their good

friend wa q

samahumaa…Led them on fa dhall

humaa… Both

of them ate from the tree fa akalaa minha...” See how it talks

about the two as sinners, no one lured the other. They repented

and God forgave the two fa t

ba ‘alayhimaa. The Qur’an talks

throughout in the dual. It means it is not the fault of Eve alone, it

is not the fault of Adam alone, but it is the fault of the two. They

made the mistake together and they were forgiven together and,

as a result, both of them came to earth together ihbitaa – in dual

form. If it were Adam alone, or Eve alone, it would have said

ihbit, and if it were in the plural, it would have said ihbit

. But it

talks in the language of the two.

According to the Christian story of the creation of

Adam and Eve, Adam lost one of his ribs because Eve was

created from his 24th rib. That is nonsense, because if you take a

man to the anatomy department of the Medical College of

Ohio

to be examined, you should find a rib missing, which is

not the case. If we look at the story of the creation of Adam and

Eve in the Qur’an, we find it completely different. [Imam

quotes 4:1 and explains:] Both of them were created from the

same Nafs. The word Nafs is taken from nafas which is indicative

of life – hay

t. After Adam was created, he was lonely; was a

poor guy. He looked for someone to meet, to brighten his life,

because everything is created in pairs, and he was one. The

sociologists of nowadays call the relationship between man and

In the year 2006, the Medical College of Ohio became the

Medical University of Ohio and merged with the University of

Toledo.

The Status of Woman in Islam – Introduction

woman a relationship of complementarity. So, God created Eve,

and according to that verse [4:1], God created her from the same

“Nafs”/Soul. That is the status of equality between man and

woman since the creation of Man. Therefore, the idea of Adam

(man) being superior to Eve (woman) does not have its origin in

Islam, or in the Qur’an, but has come from somewhere else,

because in the Qur’an the story of the creation of Adam and Eve

is different from what we read in Christianity and in Judaism.

And yet, we, Muslims, are accused of treating women as second-

class citizens and oppressing them. But we have to distinguish

between the rules of the faith, and the people who are carrying

them out. Islam is one thing and a Muslim is something else.

There are a lot of men who do not follow the rules of Islam as

they should be. Sometimes, the non-Muslims take advantage of

this anomaly, and say Islam tells them to do that. But, if we

compare the realities of life, the statistics of America tell us that

there are over one million women who are abused by their

husbands every year. Did Christianity tell them to do that?

There is a difference between religion, and the people who

belong to that religion. [The English translation of the verse

related to the creation of man and woman, as quoted by Imam

earlier, is:]

“O Mankind! Be conscious of your Sustainer, who has

created you out of one living entity (Nafs

), and out of it created

its mate, and out of the two spread abroad a multitude of men

and women…” [4:1].

I think I mentioned this to you before, that in Arabic

language, when one would like to describe a man as generous

one says:

fulanun jab

n-al kalb. It sounds as if you are insulting

him. Jab

n-al kalb means, literally, “his dog is covered”, but it

actually means, “the man is generous”. How do the Arabs

understand this expression? They say, because visitors and guests

are going in and out of his house so frequently, his dog does not

bark at strangers any more, so, “his dog has become covered”.

That is an idiomatic expression. When you take it literally, it

appears as if you are insulting the person, when, in fact, you are

praising him. These kinds of linguistic nuances are extremely

important when translating or explaining the Qur’an.

In Arabic language we differentiate between males and

females by calling a man Ali, and a woman Aliyah. We add taa’
( ﺓ ) at the end which they call “the female taa’

”

Hameed wa

Nafs is variously translated as: soul, spirit, living entity,

humankind, life essence…

taa’at-ta’neeth

Hameeda. The Arabic words zawj (ﹴﺝﻭﺯ) and zawja ( ﺠﻭﺯ

ﺔ ) are

translated as “husband” and “wife” respectively. The plural is

azwaaj for zawj, and zawjaat for zawja. But the Qur’an

sometimes uses the male noun for the female. For example:
[Imam quotes 4:1] ﺎﻬﺠﻭﺯ ﺎﻬﹾﻨﻤ ﹶﻕﹶﻠﹶﺨﻭ and created from it (Nafs) his

mate, it does not say wa khalaqa minha zawjataha. This is a case of

using the male gender to express for female.

When it comes to the plural form, we have an example

of ﺎﻬﱠﻠﹸﻜ ﺝﺍﻭﺯَﺄﹾﻝﺍ ﹶﻕﹶﻠﹶﺨ ﻱﺫﱠﻝﺍ ﻥﺎﺤﺒﺴ not zawjaat – Glory to Him who

created everything in pairs.

So this means it includes both males

and females. Therefore, when translating, or explaining the

Qur’an, it is very important to know what the Qur’an means by

a certain word. You cannot just take the literal meaning of a

word and say, that is what the Qur’an said, because the Qur’an

uses metaphorical language extensively.

A girl came to the Prophet, peace be upon him, – and

you can find this in the Hanafi school of jurisprudence – and said

to him: “Prophet, my father wants me to marry my cousin, but I

don’t love him.” The Prophet advised her to fulfill the wish of

her father. She repeated that she did not love her cousin. But he

urged her again to obey her father. She said: “Prophet, I don’t love

my cousin!”

He said to her for the third time: “You girl, listen to your father.”

She said: “Prophet, I don’t love him. Period.”

He said to her: “Then, if that is what you think, go and marry

whosoever you want.”

Then the girl said: “Prophet, I love my cousin. And I am going to

marry him, but I intended to teach my father a lesson that he

should not poke his nose in the affairs of his daughter.”

You read this in the Hanafi School of jurisprudence. And what

are we doing nowadays? Traditionally speaking, I remember the

time when my sister was going to get married. Whenever the

groom came to our house, my parents would imprison her in

the barn, so the groom would not see her. It was forbidden for

the two to see each other. And what is happening here, in

America, nowadays? A girl is in college, sitting with Muslims

and Christians, going to the mall and eating ice cream, with

every Muslim and Christian man passing by, and there is no

problem. But when she comes to the mosque, we have to

imprison and isolate her. We say, “har

m, har

- the mixing

between males and females.” We are kidding ourselves.

36:36

That which is forbidden or sinful

The Status of Woman in Islam – Introduction

Another thing amazed me last week. When I went to

Egypt recently, I went via London, Ontario, where I found a

group of Muslims, mainly Egyptians, who asked me to talk to

them and their children on my way back from Egypt. I said, no

problem; I will be in the city; arrange the talk and I’ll be there.

After I came back, on the second night, we had a meeting in the

mosque, and we talked. They have a new imam there. The new

imam…. His look – of course, I don’t look like an imam myself,

I admit it – he has a big beard, and he was wearing a white scarf

on his head – I don’t know what they call it. And, during the

talk, someone asked a question about women, and this new

imam “quoted” the Prophet as saying, “Consult with women, but

don’t act according to their advice.” That is a “hadith” quoted by

the shaykh. But, my question is, why consult with them if you

are not going to give any consideration at all to their input? And

is there nothing else in all of Bukhari and Muslim

except that

hadith? This is what I mean when I say we talk about trifles, and

waste time on these trifles.

The two most authoritative texts of hadith

There is a very big difference between Islam and

Muslims. Muslims are not abiding by Islam in their judgments

and actions, but truly, Islam, since the creation of the human

being, talked about the equality of the two: “O Mankind! Be

conscious of your Sustainer, who has created you from one Soul

and from the same Soul created his mate.” So they are created of

the same Soul and that denotes the equality since the start of life on this

earth. That’s Islam. If Muslims are behaving differently, it is not a

shortcoming of Islam, but it is the sin of Muslims. But what

concerns us more here is that while Muslims are always

criticized and publicized in the mass media, Muslims have no

means to publicize the prevailing ignorance of Christianity and

the West when they were learning from the Muslims; that is

something which we have to be aware of. We have a very

important point of argument: all the sciences that were

translated into European languages were originally invented,

made, or developed by Arabs, and even now, some carry the

original Arabic name, albeit corrupted, like al-jabr

and musiqa.

Algebra

Music

The Status of Woman in Islam:

Is Woman Equal to Man or Not?

Imam A. M. Khattab

[Part 2 of 6]

Witness Equality

n the talk last week, by Sister Yasmeen Shaikh, another issue

was raised, and that was regarding court testimony, and the

number and gender of the witnesses: “Two men, or, one

man and two women witnesses.”

That is an inequality. And Sister Yasmeen Shaikh asked a

very interesting question: “If we cannot find two men, then, can

we have four women to testify?” That is a good question. It did

not occur to me, but it makes me wonder where all the men

could disappear? However, there is no mention in the Qur’an

about having four women if there are no men, so I don’t know

how to answer that question.

Let me repeat that the stipulation of one male versus

two female witnesses is mentioned in ONLY one verse in the

Qur’an, and that verse has to do with, what we call nowadays,

the banking system – finance. There was no banking at that time,

but it was lending, borrowing and repaying between individuals.

I studied Fiqh or Islamic Law since I was in grade 1 in

Al- Azhar, and continued for 10 years studying Islamic schools of

thought. And, whenever we went to court,

I found that they

applied that principle

to the rendition of every kind of testimony,

As part of the educational requirement of Al-Azhar University

“Two men, or one man and two women, witnesses”

while the Qur’an mentioned that requirement in the area of

lending/borrowing of money only. I don’t know why, in Egypt,

this principle is applied to everything. The people have

interpreted this as being applicable to every testimony, whether

it is related to finance or not. How this came into existence, I

don’t know. As a result, our brothers, nowadays, say, “Yeah,

because the man is equal to two women.”

The Qur’an says: Have two men witnesses, or one man

and two women ﻯﺭﹾﺨُﻷﺍ ﺎﻤﻫﺍﺩﺤِﺇ ﺭﱢﻜﹶﺫﹸﺘﹶﻓ ﺎﻤﻫﺍﺩﺤْﺇ ﱠلﻀﹶﺘ ﻥَﺃ , which

means, “so that if one of them should forget the other could remind

her.”

The last part of this sentence is invariably ignored; it is

never quoted whenever that verse comes up for discussion.

Nowadays, in some interpretations of the Qur’an, you will find

some strange justifications for that: they say, the man has no

monthly period like the woman; during her menstrual period

she is sick; it is a sort of sickness, so she will not be in the mood,

as a result, she may forget. The other woman may not be in her

cycle, so she will remind her. That is some justification put forth

2:282: “Have two men witnesses, or one man and two women

so that if one of them should forget the other could remind her”

The Status of Woman in Islam – Witness Equality

by our ulama of nowadays who have tried to “modernize” Islam a

little bit.

Personally, I have a different opinion. I say, this verse

was revealed for a specific time. At that time, women were not

educated in the field of marketing and business. They lacked

experience in trading and commerce. So, they required two

women to back up each other. But, nowadays, are you going to

tell me that the girl on CNN, who gives us the business news

from all over the world, and tells us where the economy is

headed, when the recession will end, when inflation will go up,

what the current interest rate is, what the Fed is doing to remedy

that situation, and she analyzes for you the economy of all the

world in 10 minutes – are you going to tell me that she cannot

testify in court, but Mr. Abdus-Samad of my village, who never

went to school and who cannot read or write his name, will be

more acceptable when it comes to giving testimony just because

he is a man? It doesn’t make sense. Then, that Islam needs

change. If that will be our justification, if we say, yes, that is what

was revealed, then, it’s better to put the Qur’an on a tape

recorder; put the whole Qur’an on a tape recorder and just play

it; it will repeat it better than you and will never make a mistake.

But, the difference is that you read and think, while the tape

recorder does not think. So, if you don’t use your brains, it is

better to take our brains and throw them in the sea, because

these brains are here to think for every time and for every place,

to see what suits the present time and place. If you stop using

your brain to think, then, you are useless: let us go to a

psychiatric hospital for treatment.

Some will accuse Shaykh Khattab of changing the

Qur’an. I would say to them that I am from the same family as

Omar bin Khattab. Omar bin Khattab is my ancestral

grandfather, and he changed the Qur’an, and as his descendant, I

am following his lead.

Omar bin Khattab set an example for

us. I told you this before, and I am repeating it. The Qur’anic

verse number 60 in Chapter at-Tawbah came to tell us where
zakah money can be paid: ﻡﻬﺒﻭﹸﻠﹸﻗ ﺔﹶﻔﱠﻝَﺅﻤﹾﻝﺍﻭ means, the new converts

to Islam are entitled to one share of the zakah collection. That

was practiced during the time of the Prophet, and during the

time of AbuBakr as-Siddiq.

When Omar bin Khattab took over

after the death of AbuBakr, he put a stop to that practice. His

companions said to him: “But the Qur’an commands it.” He

said, “Yes, the Qur’an said it, but, this Qur’anic verse was

Imam is laughing under his breath

The first caliph after the Prophet; he reigned for 2 years

revealed for a specific time, when Islam was weak, the number

of Muslims was small, and people were encouraged by giving

them zakah to come and listen to Islam and be convinced. But,

nowadays, we are great in number, we are a very big empire, we

don’t need anyone who is coming into the fold of Islam just for

the sake of money. As a result, I’ll never pay zakah to those

people.” My grandfather stopped that; changed the Qur’an!

Why can’t we change the requirement regarding the number of

witnesses, nowadays, by saying that this verse was for that

specific time when the women were not well-versed in the area

of trading and business? Today, we have a different situation

where a choice has to be made between the female

commentator on television, well-versed in finance, and that

person who cannot read or write, and that is what we have to

account for. And, as I said many times before, the Qur’an and

the hadith are not static, but dynamic; they can, and should move

with time and place. We cannot afford to stagnate by sticking

with the past and forgetting the advancements in education,

knowledge, and technology.

Nowadays, if you want to go to Hajj,

a man will get a

visa immediately, but the woman will be asked the question:

“Where is your mahram?” She has to have a mahram with her.

Mahram means a man who falls in the prohibited categories of

marriage for her. And I admit that the requirement was valid at a

certain time in the past, but not today. If I had my way in Saudi

Arabia, I would abolish that requirement. Why, what is my

reason?

My father went to Hajj in the year 1956. I was a

student in high school at the time. And it was a very difficult,

dreadful journey, as he described it to me. For the portion of the

journey in Egypt, I was with him. First, we traveled by bus from

our village to Cairo, then, by train from Cairo to Suez. Then, he

took a ship from Suez to Jeddah. Finally, he took a camel from

Jeddah to Makkah, and then, again, a camel from Makkah to

Madinah. He traveled for weeks and weeks with only a little bit

of money in his pocket. My mother made cookies and nice

bread for him, and he took his supplies with him, because it

would take him two months before he returned. So, he

explained to me how hard the journey was: there were no

highways, no asphalted roads, camels being the only mode of

transportation in the desert. Pilgrims would spend days and

nights riding on the backs of camels, sometimes staying in

caravanserais here and there before arriving in Mad

nah. It is

The pilgrimage, requiring travel to Makkah, Saudi Arabia

The Status of Woman in Islam – Witness Equality

almost three hundred miles between Makkah and Madinah;

imagine how long it will take by camel. On the way, there were

thieves and robbers. They waited for the pilgrims on the road,

stole their money, and kidnapped the women, and this was in the

1950s. Now imagine what it must have been like if we go back

1000 years more. It was even more terrible! So, at that time,

the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, “A woman cannot travel

unless she has a mahram with her.” Now, we are applying that

hadith in the age of jet aircraft. How long does it take to fly

between Makkah and Madinah? Half an hour by aeroplane.

And, even if you travel by bus, it will be six to eight hours.

Nowadays, there is no danger. And when the woman is aboard

an aircraft she is with 400 people, male and female. Why are you

scared for her? What is the point in asking a woman to have a

mahram to protect her? She is already protected; the new

technology is protecting her. The new technology has shortened

the distance, and made it easier and safer. Distances we used to

travel in a month, we now cover in hours, and in comfort. That

idea of the mahram is something I cannot accept. A lot of people

will say Shaykh Khattab kafar.

I agree with that.

In all the verses of the Qur’an, there is no other verse,

except this one, that talks about the number of witnesses as “two

men, or one man and two women”. And if we take it in its

context, we find that it is related to finance: O you who believe,

if you are borrowing or getting a loan from someone for a

certain period of time then write it – in a promissory note –

according to our new terminology. It is not the borrower, or the

one who is lending the money, that is to write the promissory

note, but a third party that is neutral. The verse indicates that the

Qur’an was talking to people whose education was limited

because it says, let a writer write your case with justice; God

granted him the ability to read and write so let him not deny

those who are in need of his service; if you are asked to write,

then help them and write that note for them.

See the precision of the Qur’an. Normally, the biggest

testimony before a court is admission. The verse continues to

say that the one who is in debt or, the one who is borrowing the

money is to dictate to the writer. Why is that? Because, when he

dictates, it will be a sort of acknowledgement, or admission, that

he owes that amount of money, and in jurisprudence, and under

the law in general, admitting to whatever is the biggest proof. If

you go before a court and say you killed that person, then, that is

the highest proof. You don’t need witnesses; you don’t need

Disbeliever

anything. So, by dictating to the writer, the borrower is

admitting that he owes that money, and that is the highest type of

proof. But it is the nature of human beings that they love money.

So the verse continues to say, y

‘n

don’t be borrowing or

receiving $1000.00, and when you dictate, say, “I, Mr. So-and-
So, borrowed $500.00 from Mr. So-and-So.” ﺎًﺌﻴﹶﺸ ﻪﹾﻨﻤ ﺱﹶﺨﺒﻴ ﹶﻻﻭ

This is called bakhs

in Arabic. When the Qur’an mentioned how

Sayyidna Yusuf

was sold in Egypt as a slave, it says, ﻡﻫﺍﺭﺩ ﹴﺱﹾﺨﺒ –

they sold him for a paltry price – a few dirhams. So the word

yab-khas is the verb from bakhs,

and it means, state the true

amount which you have borrowed and don’t play some games

when you are dictating. The borrower should fear God in what

he is dictating and not give false information about the loan.

Then the Qur’an makes an exception and says that if

the one borrowing the money is weak, uneducated, or mentally

disturbed, and he cannot dictate, then let his guardian or the

administrator of his estate, dictate on his behalf. This verse is

recommending – some ulama of Islam say, “imposing” – that all

these details are to be observed when there is borrowing of
money which is to be repaid at a fixed time - ﻰﻤﺴﻤ ٍلﺠَﺃ ﻰﹶﻝِﺇ .

The next part of the verse is controversial among

Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The Westerners are spanking

the Muslims for that, and the Muslims, sometimes, cannot

defend themselves because that is exactly what they hear from

some ulama,

so they believe it. But, the Qur’an is simple, and

like clay: it is shapeable in every time, and in every place,

according to the circumstances. When you write that

promissory note, there must be some witnesses to sign it, just as

when you write a contract, or get married, there must be some

witnesses. The Qur’anic verse

states: call upon two of your men to

act as witnesses; and if two men are not available, then a man and two

women from among such as are acceptable to you as witnesses, so that if

one of them should make a mistake, the other could remind her.

Beautiful. So, you have to have two witnesses: two men, if

available, otherwise, one man and two women.

“Two men, or one man and two women” – that is the only

part of this verse that stands out for Muslims now. Whenever

An Arabic expression which has no equivalent in English, and

means, loosely, “I mean” or, “you know” or, “in other words”

depending on the context

The Prophet Joseph

Religious scholars

2:282

The Status of Woman in Islam – Witness Equality

there is a witnessing we say “two men, or one man and two

women”. And the Westerners read it the same way, and say one

man is equal to two women in Islam. But, again, I am going to

repeat, this is the only verse in the Qur’an which talked about

one man and two women; it does not exist anywhere else in the

Qur’an except in that verse. And you know, we, the Muslims,

are very expert when we come to these controversial verses; we

read part of them and we don’t complete them. Y

‘n

, we say:

“Marry any woman you want – one, two, three, or four. You can

marry four.” But, by saying that, we ignore half the verse. We do

not read the verse from the beginning which says that “IF you are

scared that you will not be just or fair to the orphans, THEN marry two,

three, or four... So, there is a condition. But we don’t read that

condition. We say, oh, we are allowed four. No. We are allowed

four only if the condition can be met. And the West is playing on

this, also. Moreover, what is the reason for that Qur’anic verse

which says that if you are scared that you will not be fair to the

orphans then marry two, three, or four…? At the start of Islam,

there were battles to be fought to defend the Message. Many

Muslims died, and they were the sole earners of living for their

families. At that time the Muslim government was not as

organized as it should be, because it was a very new system, so

they depended on one another to care for the orphans who lost

their fathers. If a man had orphans as his neighbors, he took care

of their needs for food and clothes. As long as the community

was small it was like one family, but when a community grows,

problems emerge. That is exactly what happened with the

Muslim community. The gossip started. When a man, out of the

goodness of his heart, entered a house to deliver food and

clothing to the orphans, some individuals would start

questioning, “How come that man is going to that house, and

there is no man in the house? What he is doing there?” So

everyone refrained because their motives were questioned. No

one wanted people to talk about them and cast doubts and

suspicion regarding their intentions. The result was that help for

orphans dried up. So the Qur’anic verse came to say that if you

are scared that you will not be fair to those orphans marry their

mother. That was a remedy; a solution for a problem. It is not a

rule, or a license, as it has been assumed, at present. These days

the situation is different: whenever a man meets a woman with

eyes bluer than those of his wife, he says, “Let us go to the

shaykh.” In the past, the second marriage was for a valid reason,

and it was an exception not the rule. And note, the Bible does

not contain any verse that prohibits marriage with more than

one wife. The Torah has no verse which prohibits the Jews from

marrying more than one wife. The grandfather of the Jews –

Sayyidna D

who is the father of Sulaym

– married

99 wives. Eh! You read it in Chapter Saad. It says he had 99

wives, and he wanted to marry the wife of his brother also; he

wanted his brother to divorce her, so he could marry her. But

the Qur’an – it is the only Book of revelation from God –

explicitly stating “one woman to one man”. That’s the opposite

of what everybody understands – Muslims and non-Muslims. The

Qur’an says, even under less than desirable circumstances where

you cannot establish justice for orphans and you marry more

than one wife – even under those circumstances – you have to

strive for equality between your wives and “If you cannot make

equality marry only one.” The word ONE is mentioned. And another

Qur’anic verse goes so far as to say, “And it will not be within

your power to treat your wives with equal fairness, however

much you may desire it….”

But how did the Prophet marry

all those wives? Did he maintain equality? No. He was not able

to. He used to love ‘Aiysha more, because she was a young girl

and needed more care and, as a result, he used to say, “God, I

have made every effort to make equality among them, but please

don’t take me to task for that over which I have no control.” And

he meant the love, the love in his heart, because he loved ‘Aiysha

more. That is the only problem he had. The equality in the

material affairs was okay. But he used to be more inclined to her

in his heart, more deferential to her, so he used to seek God’s

forgiveness for that, for something beyond his ability.

When we analyze the subject of “four wives” we find

that Islam said “one man to one woman”. That is the rule.

Anything other than that is wrong, but there are some

exceptions. What are the exceptions? An exception is a case

which is not typical or usual. For example, the goal of marriage

is mainly procreation and maintaining the generations. The

children – they are the delight of the eyes of the parents.

However, if a woman is barren, or, if the medical professionals

declare that she will never have children, then that man has some

defect in his marriage. Here, Islam says, that is a bad

circumstance; it could be rectified by him marrying another

wife, but the first wife is his responsibility also. Don’t throw her

in the street. Some people ask what options are available if the

problem is with the man, and the woman is very fertile. Can she

marry two husbands? A lot of people ask that question. The

The Prophet David

King Solomon

4:129

The Status of Woman in Islam – Witness Equality

answer is no. But there is another remedy. Islam gives her the

right to divorce instantly. She can remarry to fulfill her desire of

having children. Why does Islam not allow her to marry two

husbands? Logic. And that logic is based upon the nature of man

and the nature of woman. Imagine, she has a child now; then,

both husbands will claim to be the father and the argument will

start.

The topic of “four wives” is always brought up by

Western people, and sometimes we discuss it among ourselves,

and mistakenly, we think that this is the rule in Islam and Islam

allows it. No, Islam does not allow it. Islam makes it as a

remedy for a certain situation which is abnormal. But in normal

circumstances, one man to one woman. And the word ONE is

mentioned only in the Qur’an and not in any other revelation.

[Imam quotes Arabic verse. The translation is:]

“If you have reason to fear that you might not act

equitably towards orphans, then marry from among [other]

women such as are lawful to you – two, three, or four: but if you

have reason to fear that you might not be able to treat them with

equal fairness then [only] one – or [from among] those whom

you rightfully possess. This will make it more likely that you will

not deviate from the right course” [4:3].

Now, in the case of testimony, suppose that the first

woman did not forget, then, we don’t need the second. If the

first woman does not forget, the judge will accept the testimony

of one man and one woman. But we do not read that; we say
ﹺﻥﺎﹶﺘَﺃﺭﻤﺍﻭ ٌلﺠﺭﹶﻓ (one man and two women). And in our books of

Fiqh, you find that they extend this requirement to every type of

contract – not just a financial contract.

Why is this verse the only one in which this

recommendation is made? There is a reason why two women

are recommended. The reason is that we are in the context of a

financial deed. And when I explain these Qur’anic verses that

way, sometimes, it appears to some people exactly opposite to

what they are familiar with, and it appears like kufr

to them.

But, in fact, let us use logic. Let us go back to the history. At the

time of the Prophet, women had no knowledge or experience at

all about finance, trading, and business. As a proof for that, we

know that Khadija bint-Khuwaylid hired Muhammad, ‘alayhi-s-

salato wa-s-salaam,

to invest her money for her. That’s what

history tells us. It means that Khadija, who was a rich

businesswoman, could not function in that field, nor invest her

Denial of the rules of God

Upon him be prayers and peace

money herself. So she hired Muhammad to manage her business

for her.

What is the difference between a man and a woman?

They have the same faculties, they have the same brain, and the

article of thinking is implanted in both of them. There are some

psychological differences which they talk about today, that the

woman is more emotional than the man, but this will not affect

her faculty of thinking. The night before last, I was watching, on

television, a debate about the United States budget. A

Congresswoman, who is working on the budget committee, was

discussing the financial and economic affairs of the world. I

started to think, how could the testimony of this woman, who is

preparing a budget for the richest country on earth, be half that

of my uncle Ibrahim Abu Rib‘,

who cannot distinguish the letter

alif from the corn on the cob, ONLY because he is a man?

Personally, I question it. Someone would like to say – and a lot

of people have said that; I hear it frequently now – “O, Khattab

would like to change the Qur’an,” but the difference between

me and the people is that God created for me a little bit here and

I use it.

Is there anybody who can say to me that this woman

[the Congresswoman on the budget committee of the United

States] is not fit, and we have to have two like her to be equal to

that man of my village? If this is our thinking then Allah yarhamna

yarhamu-Islam.

[Long pause by Imam, and dead silence in the

audience.]

These thoughts, sometimes, work in my head. It is the

ability; it is the capacity to think… [Abruptly Imam brings the

sermon to an end, resisting the temptation to continue.] I’ll call

upon Amjad.

[Amjad – coming to the mimbar and pointing at Imam, says:] “His

ijtehad.”

Imam: “Used his brain, that’s all. And “Anyone who makes

ijtehad and happens to be wrong will have one thawab (reward).

But, if he turns out right, he will have two rewards.” That’s what

the Prophet said. So, he is winning anyway.

Amjad: “Thank you Imam.”

Pointing to his head, provoking laughter and clapping in the

audience

Allah have mercy on us; have mercy on Islam. This invocation

is used almost exclusively for the deceased, thus implying that

such thinking is the death-knoll for Islam and the Muslims

He is the president, and has announcements for the audience.

The audience is laughing gleefully, and Imam is laughing also.

A sincere effort to make an educated, enlightened and informed

opinion explaining an issue related to Islam

The Status of Woman in Islam:

Is Woman Equal to Man or Not?

Imam A. M. Khattab

[Part 3 of 6]

Inheritance Equality

[Verses 4:7, 11 and 12]

or males a share of what they earn and for females a

share of what they earn…”

“Yes, but how much?”

“I’ll come to the “how much” ya Dr. Mansoor, I’ll come to this

point. See….

Let me elaborate, right now, to answer Dr.

Mansoor.

Westerners, also, never tire of saying that you people

are always talking about equality between males and females in

Islam, but how come the woman has half the share of a man in

inheritance? “Is that equality?” That is a question we are always

asked. The fact is that we cannot appreciate one verse of the

Qur’an by itself, we cannot judge by one verse, or one chapter,

in the Qur’an. Islam is a total law. And you have to deal with it in

its totality. As always, we pick up selectively on that particular

part of the verse which says, “The son inherits two shares and the

daughter inherits one share,” and we interpret this to mean that

Before Imam could finish his sentence he was interrupted by a

member of the audience

Imam changes his mind and decides to address Dr. Mansoor’s

query instead

“one man equals two women”. But even this entire verse cannot

be understood in the proper context if it is considered apart, and

separate, from the rest of the Qur’an, let alone this part of the

verse which is commonly quoted separately. [It would be useful

to quote the English translation of the relevant verses here to put

them in perspective:]

“ Men shall have a share in what parents and kinsfolk

leave behind, and women shall have a share in what parents and

kinsfolk leave behind, whether it be little or much – a share

ordained by God” [4:7].

“Concerning the inheritance of your children, God

enjoins this upon you: The male shall have the equal of two

females’ share; but if there are more than two females, they shall

have two-thirds of what their parents leave behind; and if there is

only one, she shall have one-half thereof. And as for the parents

of the deceased, each of them shall have one-sixth of what he

leaves behind, in the event of his having left a child; but if he has

left no child and his parents are his only heirs, then his mother

shall have one-third; and if he has brothers and sisters, then his

mother shall have one-sixth after the deduction of any bequest he

may have made, and any debt he may have incurred. As for your

“F

The Status of Woman in Islam – Inheritance Equality

parents and your children – you know not which of them is

more deserving of benefit from you: therefore this ordinance

from God. Verily, God is all-knowing, all-wise” [4:11].

“And you shall inherit one-half of what your wives

leave behind, provided they have left no child; but if they have

left a child, then you shall have one-quarter of what they leave

behind, after the deduction of any bequest they may have made,

or any debt they may have incurred. And your widows shall have

one quarter of what you leave behind, provided you have left no

child; but if you have left a child, then they shall have one-eighth

of what you leave behind, after the deduction of any bequest you

may have made, or any debt you may have incurred. And if a

man or a woman has no heir in the direct line, but has a brother

or a sister, then each of these two shall inherit one-sixth; but if

there are more than two, then they shall share in one-third of the

inheritance, after the deduction of any bequest that may have

been made, or any debt that may have been incurred, neither of

which having been intended to harm the heirs. This is an

injunction from God: and God is all-knowing, forbearing”

[4:12].

Why do we focus only on “the male shall have the equal

of two females’ share”? We conveniently forget that we are

reading only part of the verse. If we read the rest of the verse we

find things are different: if the deceased is survived by a father

and mother, the father inherits 1/6 of the estate and the mother

inherits 1/6: that is equality, although one is male and one is

female. The Qur’an did not say that the father should take two

shares and the mother should take one share. The Qur’anic

verse says abawai – it means his “parents” – father and mother –

get one-sixth each. That makes us think, and it shows us that

when we read the Qur’an we have to understand it in its totality;

we cannot come to one specific verse and say that is what the

Qur’an said. There are even some cases in which the mother

will inherit more than the father. But, in focusing selectively on

certain parts of Qur’anic verses, we follow the Westerners who

are trying to discredit Islam, and we, thereby, help them in this

respect. When we discuss a certain verse, or subject, we have to

take it as a whole, and not just one part of it.

It is very well-known in Islam that the woman is the

responsibility of her father before her marriage. She is the

responsibility of her husband after her marriage. She is the

responsibility of her father or brother, if she is divorced. If she is

working – as we see women working nowadays – she is not

obligated to spend her money: that is Islam. If she volunteers to

spend it, it is her prerogative. And, the Qur’an, even when it

comes to the mahar,

says it is up to the women, if they

volunteer to give you a part of their dowry, then it is halal

for

you to use it, but it is at her sole discretion. So, in the same

manner, if she is working and making her own wages or money

or wealth, she is not obligated to spend it and her maintenance is

still the responsibility of her husband. If she is in need, and her

husband abandoned her, she is the responsibility of her brother.

When she becomes old she is the responsibility of her children.

All these are responsibilities.

Let us examine the situation as it exists nowadays.

Who takes care of his sister in this manner? If your sister was

married, and later abandoned or divorced by her husband, and

she came to your house, and you welcomed her as a guest, but

after three days, you kicked her out, then, you did not fulfill your

responsibilities. The reason Islam gave the man two shares is

because he is responsible for the females. Nowadays, he does not

fulfill his responsibilities. As a result, this question of shares

should be put to the big scholars to study, because people change

with time and with place.

If the deceased left behind two daughters and there is

no boy, they will get two-thirds of the estate, and the remaining

one-third will be divided among the rest of the male inheritors.

And suppose there are ten of them, then how much will the

share of each male be in comparison to the two girls? The fact is

that when Islam distributes the inheritance, it does not consider

sex as a basis for the shares.

If the deceased has brothers – say two – and he also has

one daughter, then, that one daughter will inherit one half of the

estate while her uncles will share the other half assuming that

they are the only other eligible heirs. So here we have males and

females and the shares are not 2:1. When Islam gives rights, it

attaches responsibilities to them. If we compare the rights and

the responsibilities of the brothers and the sisters, we find that

the sister, upon final analysis, is better off than her brother. That

is because “the men are the guardians of the women”.

What is

the meaning of this verse? What is the meaning of

“guardianship”? It means that the husband is fully responsible for the

maintenance of his family financially.

When we were students, we were given mathematical

problems involving division of assets among inheritors, such as: a

man died leaving behind him a wife and daughter, a sister, three

Dowry

Lawful

4:34

The Status of Woman in Islam – Inheritance Equality

brothers, and so on, and he left a certain amount of money and

land. It was a very, very thorny, and difficult topic for us. The

Qur’an classifies one group of heirs as ashab-ul furud. These are

the people for whom God has assigned a certain percentage of

the inheritance. You cannot change it. Then, there is another

class of heirs termed al-‘asabaat.

Al-‘asabaat are people from your

‘asab

(from your blood) – meaning your children. After ashab-ul

furud take their percentage, the remainder will be divided among

the ‘asabaat – two shares for the boy, and one share for the girl.

Then there is the case of al-hajb.

Hujibu minal meerath means

“forbidden” or taken out of the estate – they have no share – and

that is a very extensive science in itself. When you study the

science of inheritance as a whole, there are many different cases.

That expression, “the woman has one share, and man has two

shares,” which people normally use, is wrong. It is not that way.

A more correct expression would be, “the son has two shares and

the daughter has one share,” because the mother is a woman, and

the father is a man, and they inherit equal shares from their son.

So our expression, linguistically, is wrong when we say “the male

takes twice as much as the female” because this is not correct.

There are cases where males and females take equal shares, so it

is more appropriate to say the son has two shares and the daughter

has one share.

Why does the son take two shares and the daughter

one share? Let us look at Islam, in general, now – don’t look at

the issue of inheritance alone – and see what are the rights and

the responsibilities assigned by Islam. Meeting the expenses and

providing for the finances of the family is the responsibility of the

man, even if the wife is a millionaire. And, as a result, if he has

no money, don’t marry him. Why put yourself in that

predicament? That’s what the Prophet said, “If you can afford

marriage go ahead, if you cannot, fast; this will keep your

chastity.” In the division of the estate between sons and

daughters, the son is given two shares assuming that he is going

to get married and will have to support his wife and children.

The girl is going to marry another man who will fully support

her, so her share, which she inherited, will go to the bank – to

the savings account. So, she is in a better position than her

brother, financially speaking. Some people now, here, will say,

but this is not happening in Pakistan, and this is not happening in

Egypt, and this is not happening in Lebanon. I agree. It is not

happening because the Muslims are crooks. However, don’t

condemn Islam. Condemn the Muslims. If we abide by the

rules of Islam, there will be no troubles and no problems. But

the problem is we don’t. You know, my father did it, also. When

he was going to Hajj, he wrote his will in which he gave away all,

or most, of his estate to the boys, and gave me a better share

because I was the youngest, not married yet, and still having

some education left to complete; so he gave me an additional

amount. And when he handed me the paper, written with the

help of the mayor of the city, and I read it, I asked him, what is

that? He said, “God knows, maybe I’ll come back, or I’ll not

come back…” I said to him yes, suppose that you will not come

back, what is that paper for? He said, “So you can manage.” So I

tore the paper into pieces and I said to him, “I am a man. I could

be a farmer; I could work on any farm, but my sister,

if her

husband throws her out in the street, what can she do to earn

her living?” It made sense to him, and the will was destroyed. So

it happened in our house, too.

In Pakistan it is “har

m” for the girl to have a share in

the estate of her father: she married outside the family, so they

don’t like the estate of Mr. Ali to go to Mr. Ibrah

m. In Lebanon,

some people convert from Sunni to Shi‘i because they can play

with that inheritance business, although, they have the same

Qur’an! I don’t know where they get these ideas. But that is the

exploitation by Muslims; it has nothing to do with Islam. Islam is

a religion of justice.

It is worth hearing Imam’s tone of voice as he utters the words

“my sister”

The Status of Woman in Islam:

Is Woman Equal to Man or Not?

Imam A. M. Khattab

[Part 4 of 6]

Dress

ne of the examples put forth by Sister Yasmeen

Shaikh, in her talk about the status of women in Islam,

referred to the “dress code” and the tendency of

people to qualify it by the attribute “Islamic” before it. What is

the “Islamic dress”? Is it the Arab gallabiya? Is it the Pakistani

shalwar and qamees? Is it the American pantaloon and blouse with

a scarf?

There is no such thing as an “Islamic” dress. But, what Islam

requires is for one to be covered modestly. But what is modesty?

Irrespective of the dress that some women are attired in, what is

called hijab

still looks very, very attractive – and will turn heads

even from ten miles away. So how should a woman or a man

dress such that they will not draw the attention of the opposite

sex? It is not the dress alone that will act as a barrier to the

attraction between the two sexes; it is something in addition to

it. Talking to a member of the opposite sex will not in and of

itself cause attraction between them, but the manner of talking

can cause that attraction. The Qur’an advises the wives of the

Prophet about talking to foreign men in a language that is

considered polite – bil-ma’r

f – but not in a soft, or singsong, or

seductive voice. In the same manner, even if a woman is attired

Traditional Arab head-covering such that not one single hair is

visible

in hijab, but her behavior and manners do not conform to

Islamic mores, the dress will not do anything to prevent the

attraction of the opposite sex. Islam recommends a middle

course in everything. The Qur’an says, “We have made you a

nation in the middle.” Follow the middle way; don’t be too far to

the right, or too far to the left. ‘Aiysha, radia-Allahu ‘anh

, said, “I

used to see the perfume shining in the partition of his hair,”

referring to the Prophet. Nowadays, our brothers quote a

“hadith” which, according to them, says, “The angels will curse,

day and night, any woman wearing perfume that can be smelled

by someone passing by.” But, what about a man who is wearing

perfume? Is it legitimate for him, but not for her? Is the Qur’an

biased in favor of men?

There are words in the Qur’an that people interpret

according to their mentality, or according to their need and

inclination, or the thing which they are looking for. An example

is the verses talking about zeenah:
ﻥﹺﻬﺘﹶﻝﻭﻌﺒِﻝ ﺎﱠﻝِﺇ ﻥﻬﹶﺘﹶﻨﻴﹺﺯ ﻥﻴﺩﺒﻴ ﺎﹶﻝﻭ …Not to show their zeenah (ﻥﻬﹶﺘﹶﻨﻴﹺﺯ)

except to their husbands. [The following is the translation of the

verse Imam is referring to:]

“And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and

to be mindful of their chastity, and not to display their charms in

public beyond what may decently be apparent thereof; hence let

The Status of Woman in Islam – Dress

them draw their head coverings over their bosoms. And let
them not display more of their charms (ﻥﻬﹶﺘﹶﻨﻴﹺﺯ) to any but their

husbands…. And let them not strike [or swing] their legs so as to

draw attention to their hidden charms” [24:31].

So what is the zeenah which a woman is not supposed

to show, except to her husband? Some people claim that

earrings and bracelets constitute zeenah. Tayyab!

In that case,

then, how can we reconcile the above verse with another verse

in the Qur’an, which says, “O children of Adam! Take your

zeenah to the mosque for every act of worship.”

How can we

reconcile these two verses? Was this latter verse revealed for the

benefit of men only? Is the Qur’an talking to men only when it

advises us to take zeenah to the mosque for every act of worship,

or, is it talking to both men and women? These are the questions

which need to be asked. And when someone talks to us about

zeenah, we have to know what zeenah is.

Zeenah, in our normal understanding, includes items

such as going to a barber for getting a haircut, trimming or

shaving one’s beard, and the like; in short, paying attention to

personal grooming and appearance. Take any Arabic word and

look up its meaning in Lisan-ul Arab

and you will find that it

has twenty meanings. So zeenah has many different meanings,

and it is time for us to understand Islam on its terms. We have

the heritage in the Qur’an, and we have to supplement it with

the sunnah or the authentic hadith. And, when we interpret the

hadith, the interpretation must suit our time and our

environment, and not just be a quote of what happened 1400

years ago. There are people in Egypt at this time [late 1990’s]

who maintain that if one has no taqiyya

and white gallabiya,

his prayer is not correct, because this dress

is the dress of the

kuffar.

But the Prophet Adam was covered by the leaves of

trees in heaven! What Islam requires is covering up, and Adam

and Eve covered themselves with the leaves of the trees. That

was their dress. It is not what your dress looks like, or what its

shape is, because this differs from one place to another, and the

Fine!

7:31

The name of a dictionary

The traditional Arab male head scarf

The traditional male Arab dress

Imam is pointing to his own clothes. He is wearing pants and

blazer

The unbelievers/pagans

weather plays a great role in it. Imagine if you are wearing

gallabiya when the temperature is 30º F below zero; you will

freeze to death. Imagine if you go to Saudi Arabia in July when

the temperature soars to 150º F and you are wearing a very tight

three-piece suit; you will melt! So there are many things that

shape life other than religion, but that is the way we

[mis]understand Islam. It is not everything that the Prophet did,

or the sahaba

did, that we have to do, otherwise, as Ar-Ras

alayhi-s-salato wa-s-salaam, said in his hadith: “I love two things in

this world: dates and water.” That’s what he used to eat. Today,

we buy a whole sheep and stuff it.

Why don’t we follow the

Prophet in this sunnah and subsist on dates and water? That is

sunnah. Just go to the Arab countries and see what they are

eating there: you find food enough for an army on the table, and

how many people will eat? Three people. And they claim to be

Muslim, strictly following Islam. What Islam? There are people

starving in Bosnia. There are Muslims starving in the Philippines,

in Somalia, in Sudan, everywhere, and there are people throwing

food in the garbage that will feed all those people. And they talk

about Islam.

Islam is a sharing; Islam is a brotherhood; Islam is a co-

operation. In Cleveland, there was a meeting of Muslim

organizations wherein they expressed happiness at hearing a bit

of news. What is the bit of news? “The mosque of Perrysburg is

going bankrupt and the bank is going to take it over.” So they

were very happy. Thank God…

Is that the Islamic spirit?

Assuming the information was correct, then, the proper action

would be to extend your hand to your brothers in their time of

need. This is the house of God; it does not belong to anyone.

But, brothers and sisters, we are far away, far away from Islam.

We are just claiming to be Muslims but we are very far. We need

a lot of hard work to come back to our essentials and to our

principles; and that is the only real thing to strive to do, and we

pray that God guide us to do it. And we’ll see you next week,

insha’allah.

The Prophet’s companions

The Messenger, a title of the Prophet Muhammad

A traditional Arab dish called mansaf

Imam talks in Arabic for a long time

The Status of Woman in Islam:

Is Woman Equal to Man or Not?

Imam A. M. Khattab

[Part 5 of 6]

Women Prophets

ast Sunday someone came to me and said, “Imam, you

have been talking for the last six or seven weeks on the

subject of women. Considering that the Qur’an is full of

verses that deal with, or mention women, if you are going to

follow that pattern, you will be talking about women for the

next two years. If you are going to talk next week about

women, I’ll not come.”

I said to him, that’s very good; if you

don’t come, stay home; what’s wrong with that? You may find

someone better to talk to you at home, better than listening to

me here.

In connection with the subject of the status and equality

of women in Islam, the question has been raised whether, in the

history of mankind, there were any women prophets. Some

people, who ask that question, ask why God always sent anbiya

from men. Why have we never heard of a woman nabi?

Is that

discrimination on the basis of sex? Imam Al Qurtubi

maintains

Imam laughs

Prophets (plural)

Prophet (singular)

Imam Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abu Bakr al-

Ansari al-Qurtubi, was born in Cordoba, Spain. He was an

there is no discrimination, because God created human beings

equal.

From the history of Islam we know that there were

very pious women. If we look into the hadith we can sense the

role of ‘Aiysha bint AbuBakr and how great a part she played in

educating males and females about how the Prophet lived his life,

what he said and did, and how he conducted himself within his

house. The Prophet himself said, pointing to ‘Aiysha, “Take half

of your religion from that woman.”

History also tells us about Rabi‘ah Al-‘Adawiyy,

woman well-known for her piety. Her life story has been made

into a movie depicting how she started as a singer, then the

guidance of God came to her and she turned into a pious

woman, and through her many people were guided. They refer

to her as Shaheed da-ul-'ishqil -ilahiya – The Martyr of the Divine

Love.

eminent Maliki scholar. His twenty-volume tafseer al Jami' li-

ahkam al-Qar'an…. is famous. He settled in Munya Abi’l-

Khusavb in Upper Egypt where he died in 671H/1273.

713-801 C.E.

The Status of Woman in Islam – Women Prophets

When it comes to prophethood, Imam Al-Qurtubi

asserts there are women who were prophets. How did he arrive

at that conclusion? He said nabi is someone who receives

inspiration or wahy. In Islam, that definition is applicable to men

as well as to women, and there are women who were anbiya or

nabiyaat.

Imam Al-Qurtubi

talked about it thoroughly in his

book Zaad-al-Maa‘ad and he mentioned some of them. There is

a distinction between nabi (prophet) and ras

l (messenger).

Sometimes we use these terms interchangeably, but, in fact, they

are not synonymous. Every messenger was a prophet, but not

every prophet was a messenger. The definition of a prophet is “a

person who received revelation from God”. The definition of a

messenger is “a person who received revelation from God and

who was ordered by God to convey that message to the people”.

On the basis of this definition, Imam Al-Qurtubi says, yes, there

are women prophets. When he was asked how come there have

been women prophets and no one ever heard of them, he

replied: “A prophet is one who received revelation or inspiration

Plural of nabi, female gender

from God and the mother of Musa

received inspiration from

God. The Qur’an talked about it: ﻰﺴﻭﻤ ﻡُﺃ ﻰﹶﻝِﺇ ﺎﹶﻨﻴﺤﻭَﺃﻭ – We

inspired the mother of Moses: ‘Suckle him for a time, and then,

when thou hast cause to fear for him, cast him into the river…’”

So, the mother of Moses is one of the al-anbiya because she

received wahy; and this is according to the explanation of Imam

Al Qurtubi given a long, long time ago – much before the

creation of the women’s liberation movement. We find the same

terminology in reference to Yusuf

when he was thrown in the

well by his brothers. The Qur’an says, ﻪﻴﹶﻝِﺇ ﺎﹶﻨﻴﺤﻭَﺃﻭ – We inspired

him, We revealed to him, that one day he is going to tell his

brothers about the mistake they made in their dealings with him.

If Yusuf was a prophet because of that wahy, then the mother of

Moses is a prophet because she received wahy. That is the

reasoning behind the assertion of Imam Al-Qurtubi about

women prophets.

Moses

Joseph

The Status of Woman in Islam:

Is Woman Equal to Man or Not?

Imam A. M. Khattab

[Part 6 of 6]

Mention in the Qur’

n of Men and Women

here ever you go in the Muslim world, and listen

to the khutba

of Jum‘ah

prayers, you will find

that something about women is mentioned in the

khutba just for the sake of… well, giving them some... something;

they have to have their share and… and always their share is a

minus.

What I would like to talk about today is the number of

times women are mentioned in the Qur’an. The Holy Qur’an

has given the woman her share of verses, exactly as it has given

man his share. These verses were revealed to show that, like

men, there are women who are pious and righteous and, like

men, there are women who are corrupting on earth.

In the Qur’an are many verses describing good men,

such as N

and how he suffered; how Muhammad suffered in

his preaching of the faith; how Jesus suffered, and, on the other

hand, verses describing wicked men, such as Pharaoh, and what

he did to the people; what Abu Lahab did to Muhammad; Abu

Sermon

Friday

Imam utters in an emphatic whisper. He means, the woman is

berated

The Prophet Noah

Jahl, and so on. Similarly, the Qur’an talks about women who

were pious, and women, even wives of prophets, who were not

Muslim; they were kafir;

they did not believe in the message of

their husbands.

The Qur’an talks about women in every class of human

beings. Pharaoh was a kafir and the Qur’an talks about his wife

as mo’minah – a believer. We have verses in the Qur’an related to

Yusuf

and the wife of the Aziz;

Sayyidna Sulayman

and

Bilqees – the Queen of Sheba; we have a whole chapter entitled

Maryam;

we have H

jar and S

rah, the two wives of Ibrahim;

the wife of Ayub

who lived with him in his sickness and

poverty, and she was his right-hand. So, there are examples of

good women and bad women exactly as the Qur’an talks about

good men and bad men. The first woman created – Eve – has a

Unbelievers

The Prophet Joseph

The prime minister of Egypt

The Prophet Solomon

Mary

The Prophet Abraham

The Prophet Job

The Status of Woman in Islam – Mention in the Qur’

n of Men and Women

great share in the Qur’anic verses. She was not only created

equal to Adam, but was treated on an equal footing with Adam

in heaven as well as on earth.

The Qur’an talks about the two wives of Ibrahim –

Sarah and Hajar. Sarah was the first wife, Hajar his second wife.

The Qur’an brings out certain details in these stories to show us

the human nature, and that all the prophets and their households

were subject to the same laws governing human nature. The

problem in the house of Ibrahim, as depicted in the Qur’an,

illustrates the difficulties faced by a man married to two women.

And let me tell you what Sheikh Hashim, a friend of mine with

two wives, said to me one day. I said, “Ya Sheikh Hashim, I have

one wife and she is giving me all the trouble in life. How are you

managing with two?” He said, “Ya Shaykh Abdelmoneim, there

was a man who married two, and a man who married four. The

man who married two, and was getting trouble from them,

went to the man who married four, for consultation, and to find

out how he was managing four? His advice to him was, “Sleep

between the two.” So the guy slept between the two. One wife

spanked him on his right, and the other spanked him on the left.

In the morning he woke up with swollen flanks. So he went to

the consultant and complained about the advice he had gotten.

He asked him what had happened. He showed him his swollen

sides. He said, “Hmm. I didn’t mean this. I didn’t mean for you

to sleep between the two like that. I meant that you keep one in

the Middle East, and one in America, and you sleep in Europe.”

In the story of Ibrahim, ‘alayhi-s-salato wa-s-salaam, and

his two wives, there is a point, which is sometimes alluded to,

here, in America. I am sure that every one of you may have to

deal with it whenever the story comes up in discussions with

your non-Muslim acquaintances. There is a difference in

narration of the story of Ibrahim by the Muslims on the one

hand, and the Christians and Jews on the other. We know the

story of Ibrahim that he offered to slaughter his son Ism

‘il

as a

qurban

for God. The Jews and the Christians say the son that

was offered for sacrifice was Ishaaq – Isaac. So, which is which –

which one was sacrificed? But there is a very, very easy way to

know which one was offered for slaughter. Ism

‘il was the elder

son. And according to the Torah itself, and the New Testament,

Ism

‘il was 15 years old when Isaac was born. There is a very

good chance that this was the boy who was very dear to his

father as he was the only son, and whom God made the subject

Ishmael

Sacrifice

of the test for Ibrahim, to see how far he was willing to go in his

obedience to God. Secondly, where was the location of this

event? It was in ‘Araf

t – the Arabian Peninsula, or the Saudi

Arabia of nowadays. This lends support to the claim that it was

Ism

‘il, because he was living in this area. Isaac was living in

Palestine. How did Ism

‘il come to live in this area? It was the

result of the human nature: even the wives of prophets were not

immune to jealousy. When Hajar, the younger wife of Ibrahim,

had the baby boy, Ism

‘il, Sarah, his first wife, felt jealous, so she

said to Ibrah

m: “Will you please take that woman and her son

and put them somewhere else. I cannot live with them in one

house.” Ibrahim did not like to have trouble in his house. The

order came to him through inspiration to take them to Makkah

where there was no water, no plants, or vegetation; there was

nothing. It was pure desert. And, also, there was no oil!

The Qur’an mentions two kafir women: the wife of

Sayyidna N

and the wife of Sayyidna L

The wife of N

was a corrupting influence on earth; she undermined her

husband’s work of preaching to the way of Allah. The Qur’an

called her “kafira”; she was fighting her husband even in his

mission for God.

At the time of L

t, men were interested in men, and

women were interested in women – homosexuality, as they call

it. You know, Sayyidna L

t and the homosexuals were in the area

known, nowadays, as Jordan, so this is.... Looks to me like we,

the Arabs, also taught people the practice of homosexuality. We

are experts in everything. The wife of Sayyidna L

t informed the

homosexuals in town about the arrival of the angels, who came

in the form of human beings as very handsome men, to warn

Sayyidna L

t about the impending destruction of the towns. The

wife of the Prophet L

t, I think, if she were living today, would

be living in California. She used to, whenever she saw a very

nice, handsome boy, inform the homosexuals and say, “Come on,

there is a very nice boy here.” She played a role in corrupting the

society. On the contrary, we have Pharaoh who is described by

the Qur’an as “he was arrogant even among inordinate

transgressors” while his wife was a believer, and the Qur’an talks

about her praying to God to save her from Pharaoh and his

actions, and to build for her a house in jannah

. [Imam quotes

Arabic verses. The translation is:]

The Prophet Noah

The Prophet Lot.

Paradise

The Status of Woman in Islam – Mention in the Qur’

n of Men and Women

“For those who are bent on denying the truth God has

propounded a parable in the stories of Noah’s wife and Lot’s

wife: they were wedded to two of Our righteous servants, and

each one betrayed her husband; and neither of the two husbands

will be of any avail to these two women when they are told on

Judgment Day, “Enter the fire with all those other sinners who

enter it!” And for those who have attained to faith God has

propounded the parable in the story of Pharaoh’s wife as she

prayed, “O my Sustainer! Build Thou for me a mansion in the

paradise that is with Thee, and save me from Pharaoh and his

doings, and save me from all evildoing folk!” And We have

propounded yet another parable of God-consciousness in the

story of Mary, the daughter of ‘Imran, who guarded her chastity,

whereupon We breathed of Our spirit into that which was in her

womb and who accepted the truth of her Sustainer’s words –

and thus, of His revelations – and was one of the truly devout”

[66:10 – 12].

The Qur’an also talks about a woman in the field of

love. It is explained very clearly in chapter Yusuf.

Yusuf was a son of the Prophet Yaqoob – Jacob. His

mother passed away while he was a little child. He and his

brother, Biny

n, or Benjamin, were the children of one wife

while the other ten children of Yaqoob were from another

woman. Since the wife of Yaqoob, the mother of Yusuf and

Benjamin, passed away during their childhood, the father gave

them more care and attention and tried to make up for the care

of mother and father at the same time. This created jealousy in

the hearts of the other ten children, who questioned why their

father gave special attention to Yusuf, in the first place, then to

Benjamin, in the second place. That was crowned by a dream of

Sayyidna Yusuf wherein he saw eleven stars, the sun, and the

moon prostrating before him. And when he narrated that dream

to his father, his father said this was a true dream and, insha’allah,

God will perfect His bounties upon you as He perfected them

before upon your forefathers, Ibrahim and Ishaaq. But Yaqoob,

knowing the attitude of his other children towards Yusuf, advised

him not to tell his brothers about his dream.

Plots and conspiracies have existed since that time. The

ten children of Yaqoob held a meeting and everyone expressed

his concern about their father giving more attention to Yusuf and

resolved to do something, at least to draw the attention of the

father to themselves. Everyone started to give suggestions.

Someone suggested killing him. But the older brother reminded

Chapter 12

them that they were the children of a Prophet and, because

killing was not permitted by religion, no one would accept that.

He exhorted them to come up with some other alternative.

Then he suggested throwing Yusuf into a well. Some passing

caravan would fish him out when they got some water from the

well, and maybe, they would take him away to some far away

land thereby ending that chapter in their life: Yusuf would

disappear and their father would direct his attention to the other

brothers. The brothers accepted this great plan and decided to

carry it out.

One day, the ten brothers went to their father and said

that the sun is shining, the weather is beautiful today, and we are

going out to the desert; why don’t you send Yusuf with us to let

him enjoy the good weather. So, as if Yaqoob put the words in

their mouth and helped them in what they were going to do, he

said, “I am scared that, if he went with you, and you get busy

playing, the wolf will eat him. And that will make my life

miserable.” Unwittingly, he gave them the idea of what to do, or

what to say, after they came back without Yusuf. And, because

they insisted, he permitted them to take the child. They took

him and threw him in the well, took his shirt and stained it with

some colored thing, like blood, and returned in the evening

crying, screaming that the wolf had eaten Yusuf, and as proof,

produced his bloodstained shirt. That is exactly the basis for the

Arabic saying: “He kills someone and then joins in his funeral”;

that is exactly what had happened. And this story is narrated to

the Prophet to show him how much one of the prior prophets

suffered during his life and for the sake of the message with

which he was entrusted.

Now, Yusuf is in the well. [Imam quotes Arabic verse.

The translation is:]

“And so, when they went away with him, they decided

to cast him into the dark depths of the well. And we revealed

this unto him: ‘Thou wilt yet remind them of this their deed at a

time when they shall not perceive who thou art.’”

That was

the first experience for Yusuf to receive al-wahy.

A caravan of camels and men came along and the chief

of the tribe asked one of the men to bring some water from the

well. He lowered his bucket into the well and a very nice,

beautiful boy clung to the rope of the bucket as it was raised.

Everyone was amazed to such an extent that the Qur’an

12:15

Inspiration from God

The Status of Woman in Islam – Mention in the Qur’

n of Men and Women

expresses it this way:

“Ya bushra hadha ghulam” – what a glad

tiding we are receiving now! That is a beautiful boy! ﹰﺔﻋﺎﻀﹺﺒ ﻩﻭﺭﺴَﺃﻭ –

they considered him to be their own property. And all the while

God is watching; knows what they are doing, and knows what is

His own plan.

They decided to sell him in the slave market in Egypt.

The prime minister of Egypt, or what they call Al-Wazeer-ul-

Akbar, came and offered to buy the child. And whatever the

price he paid for Yusuf, it was a very, very cheap price, as the
Qur’an puts it – ﻡﻫﺍﺭﺩ ﹴﺱﹾﺨﺒ . The prime minister told his wife to

take care of the boy, feed him very well, educate him very well,

and, maybe, he will be our son one day: if we have a child, then

he will be a servant, but, if we don’t have a child of our own, we

will adopt him as our child. So Yusuf now lived in the house of

the greatest man in Egypt. When he became a young man, his

other troubles started.

Now we are talking about women in love. The wife of

the prime minister felt love towards Yusuf, and invited him

sometimes by saying a few words here and there, hinting, she did

not talk frankly but… and Yusuf was playing deaf. He didn’t

listen. She tried her utmost, but to no avail. So, one day, she

entered her bedroom attired nicely, called upon Yusuf, closed the

door, and said to him, “Now you know what I want.”

Yusuf said,

“I seek refuge in God from you. He is my God who honored

me as a human being. The people who act against the rules of

God will never be successful.”

The boy was not amenable by peaceful means, so he

had to be forced. She came to grab him, he ran towards the

door, and as she pulled him from his shirt from the back, it tore.

As soon as the door was opened, her husband was standing on

the other side. Naturally, she wanted to put the blame

somewhere so she said to her husband, “Look, this boy is

dishonest; he has to be imprisoned. He was going to spoil your

honor.” See, here we are talking about yet another type of

woman – plotting. And the Qur’anic verse says,
“ ﻡﻴﻅﻋ ﻥﹸﻜﺩﻴﹶﻜ ﻥِﺇ ﻥﹸﻜﺩﻴﹶﻜ ﻥﻤ ﻪﱠﻨِﺇ Behold, this is an instance of your

guile, O womankind! Verily, awesome is your guile!”

Imam quotes in a very hoarse, urgent, subdued voice

Imam pauses. There is dead silence and a palpable suspense in

the audience

Imam’s voice breaks with emotion

A pause - and Imam’s voice is back to story-telling

There are some people, nowadays, who would like to

depict women as more powerful than the Shayt

and they

support their claim by pointing out that the Qur’an says, “Verily,

Satan’s guile is weak indeed”

but when it talks about the

woman it says: “Verily, awesome is your guile.” That’s what the

people say – to justify what they are saying.

So, there is now an accused and an accuser: the wife of

the prime minister accusing Yusuf of asking her for something

not right. And he says, no, just the opposite: she is the one who

is running after me. A cousin of hers, who was standing there

talking to her husband at the time, who was well-known to be a

good man, and a wise person, offered to act as an arbiter and

they accepted his offer. See how the people of old solved their

problems? Everyone involved told their story. Then the arbiter

said, “Look, if his shirt is torn from the back then he is a truthful

guy and she is a liar, because he was running and she grabbed

him from the back. If the shirt is torn from the front, it means

that he is a liar and she is the truthful one, because he was

attacking her and she grabbed the shirt from the front.” Since the

shirt was torn from the back, the prime minister said, now it

shows that Yusuf was innocent and that you are a liar. Fa,

said to Yusuf, don’t talk about the incident, we don’t need a

scandal; and, turning to his wife, told her to seek God’s

forgiveness for what she had done.

But the gossip mills were set in motion. The women

around the city started to ask whenever they met: “Do you know

the news of today? The wife of the Prime Minister wants to

sleep with her servant.” And this was propagated here, and

reported there, until the whole city came to know the story. The
Qur’an says, ﺎﺒﺤ ﺎﻬﹶﻔﹶﻐﹶﺸ ﺩﹶﻗ . Note the expression of the Qur’an.

Instead of saying that she fell deeply in love with him –

shaghafahu hubbaha or ahabbat-hu – as we normally say, the

Qur’anic expression is qad shaghafaha hubban – “the love of Yusuf

penetrated through the layers of the flesh of her heart.”

But, the wife was a very powerful woman. She invited

the women of her social standing to a party, but there was no

The devil. They would like to depict the women as a more

powerful temptation than the devil himself

4:76

: A connecting letter in Arabic language, that connects a

previous idea with a following idea, and can be translated as

“then” or “so” depending on the context

The Status of Woman in Islam – Mention in the Qur’

n of Men and Women

dabka.

It was just a party for food – muttaka’– you know, like

when we put mattresses on the ground and pillows at the back

and sit – y

‘n

, it was something luxurious in its setting. Food

was served. She gave everyone of the women a knife to cut the

meat, to cut the fruit, to cut whatever she had. Then, she called

upon Yusuf to make his entrance. He came – a young man,

attractive, strong, healthy. He entered. Every one of the women

looked at him and was so carried away by his good looks that,

instead of cutting the apples or the pears, they cut their fingers.

When the prime minister’s wife saw the blood coming out of

their hands, she appeared like a lion: [Imam quotes 12:32 and

explains:] this is the one you blamed me for asking him what I

want. If he will not do what I am ordering him, he will be

imprisoned and humiliated. See the power. And the power of

love. And what did Yusuf say? Imagine, beauty, wealth, palaces,

everything anyone could desire, but Yusuf said: “O God, the

prison is more to my liking than what they are asking me.”

Nowadays, the men follow the go-go girls everywhere in the

clubs, and all that business, while Yusuf says “The prison is more

to my liking than what they are asking me to do. O God, if you

are not going to support me at this time there is a chance that
ﻥﹺﻬﻴﹶﻝِﺇ ﺏﺼَﺃ.” There is a chance that ﻥﹺﻬﻴﹶﻝِﺇ ﺏﺼَﺃ means:

O God, if

you are not going to support me at this time there is a chance

that I’ll do what they are asking.” So, that is another kind of a

woman mentioned in the Qur’an to show another color for a

woman.

The story of Moses, in the Qur’an, provides us an

example of a woman in his life who became his wife, and it

shows how he got married, and how women are supposed to

propose to men, although this is considered shameful nowadays

and, they say, the men should initiate the proposal. No. When

we perform the marriage in Arabic, we ask the girl to say, “I

propose to marry you” and he says, “I accept”. That is the way of

Islam. Always we say, ha! arranged marriage! The girl married

without even seeing her husband, and the first time she saw him

was on the wedding night. But Islam recommends that the girl

be the one to propose to the man, and where do we get this idea

A Lebanese dance

from? Khadija. She proposed to Muhammad. She sent him a

woman with the message that she was interested in marrying

him. Same thing with Musa

– the girl proposed to him and he

accepted.

Since the message of Islam, as revealed to all the

prophets, starting with Adam and ending with Muhammad, is

one, we can learn some things from the story of the Prophet

Moses. In the story of Moses, there is mention of four women:

his mother, his sister, his adopting mother or stepmother – the

wife of Pharaoh – and another woman who was later his wife.

The interesting feature in the story of Moses is that it

encompasses the role played by woman in the life of man. In our

communities, we find some people are always gearing their talk

towards what a woman should, and should not, do. The story of

Moses tells us who and what a woman is: she is your mother,

your sister, your daughter, or your wife. These are the roles or

relationships linking males with females. So, if you treat every

woman as your mother, sister, daughter, or wife, and if you apply

in your life what you feel towards these four, there will be no

antagonism between males and females.

Finally, the Qur’anic verse [Imam quotes Arabic verse]

mentions especially both males and females, and it ends by

saying, God prepared for them forgiveness and a great reward.

It did not say that the reward will be more for males than

females or vice versa. They are equal. [The English translation of

the verse is:]

“ Verily, for all men and women who have surrendered

themselves unto God, and all believing men and believing

women, and all truly devout men and truly devout women, and

all men and women who are true to their word, and all men and

women who are patient in adversity, and all men and women

who humble themselves before God, and all men and women

who give in charity, and all self-denying men and self-denying

women, and all men and women who are mindful of their

chastity, and all men and women who remember God

unceasingly: for all of them has God readied forgiveness of sins

and a mighty reward” [33:35].

Moses